Touch
by Obsessed Lass
Summary: Touching was an act of war.
1. i

Conviction. She still called it so. How long could one sustain a fiction, no matter how wonderful? Not a single thread out of place.

*

Sakura never realized when Naruto stopped touching her. No more affectionate arm squeezes, no taking her fingers and gently rubbing them with his calloused hands that always made things look a little less dark. His touch had been as consistent as his idiocy; it perplexed Sakura how she had failed to see it dwindle into nothing.

Perhaps because both had been busy building their fantasies bit by bit.

(They had always been loyal coconspirators).

*

Sakura looked at Sasuke's retreating back, slowly dissolving into a grey dot amidst the spring verdure of the forests. Her left shoulder tingled with the ghost of a feather soft touch, a silent thank you for the bento that had become a ritualistic parting gift.

As she started walking back to her apartment, she wondered why she didn't feel any lonelier at the prospect of his absence.

(Too cruel, too enamored with a vision to have seen the lurching, lingering ghosts faithfully shadowing his path. She was wedded to her ideas; he was wedded to his pain. No room to cram in a semblance of joy.)

*

She'd only wanted to submit her proposals for the new pediatric department.

Naruto's head rested on an angled fist, his eyes closed (mercifully? mercilessly? She didn't know). She found herself pulled towards him as if by gravity.

She knew he wasn't really asleep.

(They had finally come to this.)

Sakura gently traced the whiskers on his cheeks before tilting up his chin and kissing his slightly parted lips.

*

Assured she was gone, Naruto opened his eyes and let out a shaky breath.

The taste of promise still lingered on his mouth.


	2. ii

"What are you doing Sakura-chan?"

Naruto's voice trembled.

Since when did her touching him hold such an illicit tingle to it?

Hadn't he memorised the feel of her fingers on his much abused face?

Hadn't she held his most intimate part in her clasp, pulling forth that elusive beat from the mouth of apparent oblivion?

Sakura continued caressing his face, welcoming the palpable weight of crossed lines.

Lines they had drawn together in the glow of their delusions.

"You have become a busy person Naruto. Too busy to say more than a hello to your former best friend."

*

Sakura's hands drew circles on Naruto's chest, as if mapping esoteric diagrams lurking underneath his robes.

He was getting distracted by her long wandering fingers. They didn't feel innocent any more.

Why was she doing this?

Wasn't he playing by their rules?

What right had she to accuse him of staying away when she did exactly the same?

*

"You haven't been exactly available Sakura-chan."

Sakura's eyes held an unusually violent glint in them.

"I was busy playing house, didn't you hear?"

Thoughts of a spartan room pregnant with regret rose in her mind.

She pushed those down.

She was beginning to develop quite a flair for repression.

But no more.

Lingering discontent bred familiarity in the hearts of some people.

Not for Sakura.

She was ruthlessly determined to snatch the vestiges of joy from that cowering, self sacrificing dunce of a man.

*

Naruto couldn't really blame himself for his part in the facade. He would easily crush his own anguish if everybody else was happy.

He would see the deserted Uchiha compound come alive with perfect gladness in his soul.

He would.

He would.

But nothing seemed to have fallen into place.

Their fiction was falling apart.

He was slowly falling apart with the way her fingers viciously marched across his skin.

*

When Sakura pressed him against the wall and filled his mouth with fury and tongue and a thousand burning dreams, Naruto stopped thinking.

Perhaps it was time to set old ghosts on fire.


	3. iii

To want and want and not have. One would think unselfish love became easier with all those years of practice.

His longing only grew like mould.

They were still best friends, but it felt sort of scripted now. A choreographed routine. He was really, truly happy that Teme was _home_ again, but it didn't hurt any less that his days of unthinking companionship with Sakura-chan were over. For a while at least. Until he made some tentative peace with the hard facts.

He had sincerely believed that Sakura-chan's selective obliviousness was for his benefit till the day he caught a glimpse of her expression before it quickly settled into flippant cheerfulness.

His lips had then claimed hers with such dazzling swiftness that her volatile temper failed her for the first time.

He could want and want and not have. But not Sakura-chan. _Never her._


End file.
